


Of distance and impact

by DominiqueFrancon



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Action Dueling, F/M, Jedi, Lightsabers, Original Character(s), Please be nice, Reylo Feels, Romance, Sith, Slow Burn, cinnamon rolls abound
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-09-15 13:07:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16933785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DominiqueFrancon/pseuds/DominiqueFrancon
Summary: In a duel, the distance between you and your opponent determines how much you can hurt them.In love, the distance between you and your partner determines how you can influence them.Two original Star Wars characters, a Jedi knight and a Sith apprentice, orbit and battle each other in the early days of the Galactic Republic.I'm no expert on the ins and outs of this beautifully complicated universe, but I have a story to tell so I'm giving fanfiction a shot. Be nice! Encouraging comments and constructive criticism are beyond welcome. Leave a comment to make my day <3





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [My handsome Jedi - the love of my life](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=My+handsome+Jedi+-+the+love+of+my+life).



In a duel, the distance between you and your opponent determines how much you can hurt them.

That’s why Sarna Duine faltered, arching backwards to spare her shoulder a nasty gash. Her opponent’s saber-tipped guandao had an easy reach of eight feet, and by slashing it at her in broad strokes, the towering young man was creating an impermeable, crackling blue radius.

The Jedi stood more than a foot taller than her - he couldn’t have been shorter than six foot four. His loose undershirt hid what must have been thickly muscled arms, to be wielding his heavy metal weapon so effortlessly. 

From short, slicked dark hair, to the off-white wraparound tunic and smooth brown boots he wore, everything about the young man screeched “order.” Even the pale skin of his square face, warring with thick, dark brows, was a treatise to clean lines. An extended, coarse gray vest that hung to his ankles matched the Jedi’s wide belt. In any other situation, Sarna would have stopped to admire the form and style of such a man.

But in the hangar bay of her starship, dueling under a bath of pulsing red warning lights, she resented his strength. The man didn’t miss a beat. When the curve of flickering blue plasma met nothing but air, he swung his staff to complete the circle of momentum, and lunged at her again. 

She would give the Jedi credit for his speed, that much was due.

With a humble arm span of two and a half feet, and her complimentary two and a half foot lightsaber, even Sarna’s blazing anger could do nothing to help in this battle. She couldn’t reach her enemy.

She screamed in frustration, slamming her sword sideways to catch the mandalorian iron pole of his staff, almost where the Jedi was gripping the weapon. He flinched to protect his fingers, and Sarna took the anticipated split-second of respite to bowl him backwards with a blast of the force. She didn’t wait to watch him hit the grated floor - she gathered power in her legs and leapt to a catwalk above them. The Sith apprentice doused her lightsaber and broke into a graceless sprint towards the emergency exit.

A low, pulsing alarm blared around them, but she grimly accepted that no help would be coming for her. Her ship was in empty reaches of space. Her most trusted guards, the ones who had been with her when the Jedi invaded, were lying dead in pools of their own blood on the floor below her, smoke still rising from their molten armor. The Jedi would _pay_ for their deaths.

But - that could wait for another day. Sarna leapt for the exit, knowing once beyond it and out of her enemy’s eyesight, he’d never be able to tell which direction she took to reach the escape pods. 

The metal door slammed down in front of her, and the Sith apprentice’s feet barely backpedaled fast enough on the slick metal surface to spare her nose. Sarna whirled to assess her other options, golden, red-rimmed eyes flicking back to the catwalk - and found herself staring straight into the chest of her crouching, lethal opponent. She hadn’t sensed him jump in the commotion. He held his weapon diagonally poised in the air above her right shoulder - she knew, instinctively, he could end her life simply by letting his arms fall.

The man’s steel blue, narrowed eyes bored down on her, as disappointed as they were hawkish.

“Did you think I’d attack your ship without a plan?” he spat.

Sarna bared her teeth, furious and terrified. Normally, this would lend her bravery, as her passions connected her to the dark side of the force.

But today, backed against the wall, fear rendered her helpless. This scene had so often played out in her dreams. She could do absolutely nothing - not leap, not raise an arm, not activate her saber, _nothing_ \- in the time it would take her opponent to cut her down. But she could die with honor.

Sarna Duine dropped to her knees, head bowed, staring at the Jedi’s boots and swallowing against rising bile in her throat. She closed her eyes and braced for impact. Her mother’s face flashed in the darkness behind her lids; and, pulled from whatever was bubbling strongest in the chaotic emotion-soup of her numbed brain, the Sith apprentice felt tears prick at the corners of her eyes.

“Another will rise in my place,” she hissed, ignoring how her voice broke.

Her lightsaber twitched at her side and then leapt into the man’s outstretched hand. The buzzing hum of his guandao abruptly vanished, and she felt, rather than watched, her adversary straighten in front of her.

“Oh fucking spare me, you won’t die here,” he said. “Unless you force my hand. It’s not the Jedi way.” 

Sarna slowly blinked, eyes darting up to his face, unable to parse those words, in that order. Did Jedi even curse?

He reached around to tuck her saber into the back of his wide leather sash, and his hand re-emerged with a pair of complicated-looking metal binders.

“Stand up, and turn around. You’re coming back to Coruscant in cuffs,” he spat. “Try taking them off, or anything the least bit stupid, and you won’t be coming back to Coruscant at all.”

“Coruscant?”

“Stand. Up,” he commanded, one of his heavy brows lifting incredulously. “And stop talking.”

By a power unknown to her, Sarna raised to stand on wobbling legs, scrutinizing his face for any hint of deception. His brow was deeply furrowed, and he stared at her hands rather than her eyes. The Jedi grabbed one of her wrists and spun her roughly around, pulling her other arm back so he could lock the restraints in place. She shivered, feeling her enemy’s breath on her neck. 

It was an unsettling realization that the monster’s hands felt warm on her gloves. She’d never before attributed temperature to the rank of force-doused robots who called themselves Jedi.

“Why are you taking me to Coruscant?” she asked.

“You’ll face trial,” he said. “And for your crimes against the Galactic Republic, you’ll be executed.”

Sarna stumbled as his enormous hand gripped her by the shoulder and directed her in front of him down the catwalk, presumably towards his ship. Of course he’d prolong her execution, letting her dwell on her fate over a three-day trip. She had been mistaken a moment ago. There was no warmth to this man.

She bit her cheek as he shoved her forward again, letting the salt shock of blood stave off her numbness. A familiar hum of rage started to churn in her chest. 

Let him think he was marching her towards an execution, then. On his ship, Sarna would have nothing to do but plan; and the next time she crossed blades with this scum, she wouldn’t be taken by surprise.


	2. Chapter 2

That had gone cleaner than expected, Cyrus decided, sealing the ramp of the stolen Mandalorian freighter behind them. It hissed obediently.

_Borrowed_ , he corrected himself. The borrowed Mandalorian freighter.

The Sith girl’s cape nearly tripped him a third time, so he pushed her as far in front of him as his arm could stretch. Her short legs, in those ludicrously impractical hip-high boots, scrambled to offset the sudden shove.

“I can walk by myself,” she hissed.

Cyrus Barakis’ lips twisted into a wry smile behind her. “You can do what I say you can do.” He steered her towards the cockpit. “Stop talking.”

The untamed, rich brown curls of her high ponytail almost reached down to her wrists, sheathed in over-the-elbow velvet gloves and shackled in wide silver binders.

The silver helped a bit, Cyrus thought. Almost everything else the she-demon wore was jet black - apart from a stripe on her boots, a stripe on her gloves, and the lining of her hooded cape, which were all a rich crimson.

He pushed the Sith into the cramped control room, and maneuvered her into the copilot’s seat, walking around to face her. Catching a glance of her face again, he had to remind himself to wash away any alarm. To find peace through the force.

Her stark gold-red eyes, centered in a thick stripe of black war paint that reached from one ear to the other, were even more unsettling than before, as they now clashed with her calmly sitting form. She disdainfully tracked his every move with them. 

He grabbed the tightly woven belt from the corner of her chair, focusing instead on the task at hand, and began to strap her in.

“So kind of you to be concerned with my well-being,” she drawled acerbically. 

He ignored her, working with the second belt on the chair. He latched it in an X over her black, form-hugging bodysuit. 

Even though she was a Sith, and every mistake she made helped him, his mind briefly objected to how impractical her clothing would be to a warrior in battle. Had been, in their battle five minutes ago.

When she spoke again, her voice had sombered to anger. “If I’m to die for my ‘crimes against the Holy Infallible Galactic Empire,’” she mocked, “you’re wasting fuel to fly me back to your precious council. Are all Jedi as brainless as they are weak?”

“Listen Darth Swimsuit,” he said, settling into his own seat. “You don’t get to call the shots. Because you lost.” Cyrus clunked his guandao on the floor beside him, within easy arm’s reach, and flicked switches to warm the ship’s engine. “Which, by the way, makes ‘weak’ a curious choice of words for you right now.” 

He felt wisps of the force swirl darkly around the young woman.

“Taube,” she seethed. “Darth Taube.”

Cyrus had been improving in his daily meditations, really. Master Yoda had said so. He just couldn’t school his pained face in time to meet her gaze.

“Seriously? Darth Towel, that’s the best your boss could do?”

Her yellow eyes flashed at him, full lips pressed thin as she jutted her lower jaw slightly forward. Like a jumping viper, suddenly one of his dangling seat restraints had coiled around his throat.

_Shit._

Cyrus arched his back and wormed his long fingers under the taught fabric, fighting for breath, while he summoned his staff to his other hand. No sooner had the cool metal met his waiting palm than he swung it in front of him, barely avoiding critical damage to his control board, and slammed the heavy pole into the Sith’s defenseless ribcage. He heard the wind rush out of her in a “whoosh,” as the belt fell slack from his neck.

“What the hell did I say?” he asked, sucking in air so quickly he coughed. Cyrus leapt from his seat, gripping his guandao properly now, if awkwardly, in such a cramped space. “Do you want me to drop you in front of the Jedi council in a box, hacked into ten pieces?”

Taube was still bent forward as much as her safety belts would allow, gasping for breath and glaring up at him with watery eyes.

“You said… it’s not… the Jedi way,” she wheezed.

Anger fought for control of Cyrus’ mind. With the practice of many years of Jedi training, he bit back his base, knee-jerk response, _I’m not a master yet, so no one would blame me for making one well-prompted mistake._

Cyrus ground his teeth; that thought wasn’t allowed to be his. He was cool and calm. He put down his weapon.

“You’re not even an adequate challenge, thinking like this,” he said, his voice perhaps more ‘cold’ than cool. He circled behind the girl to dig through a storage compartment. “Of all the ways you could have used the force to your advantage just now, temporarily choking me was the least effective.”

After a moment, his fingers felt the smooth surface of the jury-rigged pilot’s helmet he’d been searching for. “Now your window is gone.”

Cyrus jammed the orange and white helmet over her bowed head, pulling the altered blast shield over her eyes. He checked to make sure the ear cups had settled flush against her skin.

“Fashionable,” she laughed. “But this hardly stops me from kicking -”

Cyrus pressed a button on the crown of the dome, and watched as her next words stuck in her throat, and her narrow, softly sloped shoulders tensed straight.

It wouldn’t hurt her, but the rapid, random image flashes coupled with the shrieks, clicking, clamoring and booming of the helmet’s jarbled audio, would completely eliminate the Sith’s ability to focus. And without focus, she could have no hold on the force.

Maker, he was grateful he’d had the foresight to bring it. 

Barakis strapped himself into his seat properly, and plugged in directions for his ship, the Eon Storm, to carry them back to Coruscant. She hummed compliantly and spat out the readings - the journey would take just over two standard day cycles, but he’d need to stop to refuel about halfway. He slammed the lever for lightspeed. He’d already been away too long.

The Jedi took a shuddering sigh as stars started to streak around them, his adrenaline receded, and the weight of his actions set in.

Cyrus Barakis was not usually an impulsive risk taker. Even two months ago, he would never have pegged himself as the kind of man who could “borrow” a seized freighter and fly across the galaxy to kidnap a Sith apprentice, against the express orders of the Jedi council. 

The group that had seen the potential in him, raised him, and introduced him to the band of padawans he now considered brothers through friendship. A group he fully respected, and hoped to prove himself to. He’d wanted nothing but to attain the rank of Master since he was a child, endowed with fresh importance, newly inducted into the Jedi training program.

But two months ago, when Cyrus was that rule-following man, Kyp Thashin had been alive and well enough to spar, talk and share holovids with him through long days of training. Cyrus has counted on seeing the bastard’s smiling face and glinting eyes across the table at mealtimes. He took no greater pleasure than sensing flickers in the force, and subsequently exposing the slippery cheat’s extra cards and loaded die in their weekly sabbac excursions.

If Cyrus had had a closest friend in the academy, that moof-milker would have been it.

_There is no death. There is only the force,_ he reminded himself. The ship hummed hollowly in response, stars streaking dispassionately around them.

Cyrus glanced at the young woman in the seat next to him, baring her gritted teeth under the helmet’s flashing visor. A soft whimper escaped her throat as her head twitched to one side. 

There was no way, with the ease with which he’d subdued her, that this scourge could have bested Kyp. She wasn’t who he’d come to catch.

Even more of a reason not to kill her out here, in the dark expanses of wild space. He had plenty of questions to ask with the assistance of Master Yoda.

_That, and the Council will absolutely, without a doubt, expel you if you kill this woman in your misdirected lust for revenge,_ his snide inner voice reminded him.

He rubbed a hand over his tired face. He thought of the trouble he’d incurred. Kyp was still dead, the council would be furious, and he’d be bringing back a minnow rather than the prize shark for his efforts. When, that is, he revealed to his mentors he’d been off galavanting after Sith Warriors by himself.

As if prompted, the ship’s transceiver blinked to life and Cyrus nearly jumped out of his skin. His brain froze, and then whirred into overdrive. He’d later consider this the fastest he’d ever unbuckled from a seat in his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not gonna lie, Cyrus is based on my favorite human being, so I hope you like him, too!
> 
> You're about to realize I know little to nothing about the Star Wars extended universe - I'm sorry, there's just too much to research in too little time! If you see a problem with any of the tech or scenery I write about, I'd love for you to gently let me know in the comments :) Thanks friends.


	3. Chapter 3

**POP. BANG. Flash. Hissssssss, crackle. Three immediate flashes. A moment, and then another BANG. Hiss.**

Sarna Duine could not think, so barraged was she with nonsequential, disorienting sounds and flashes. There was no pattern, and no relief. So intrusive was the input from this deathtrap, that for several moments, she didn’t feel the chair’s safety belts being ripped from her frame, and then was surprised to suddenly be pulled to unsteady feet.

**POPPOPPOP flash crrrrrrackle BANG.**

She was being yanked in a direction she could not see, and she couldn’t focus enough to call on the force.

_Force, she was going to die._

**FLASH POP BANG FLASHBANG crrracklePOP hissss BANG.**

She locked her spine upright and futilely shuffled her feet backwards, trying to fight against her assailant’s iron grip and unstoppable momentum. Not that going backwards would have strategically helped her. Sarna Duine was, for the second time that day, utterly helpless, and some small, still-thinking part of her knew it.

“Stop, stop!” she cried - or, thought she did. She felt her vocal chords humming, but she couldn’t hear her own voice.

**BANG BANGBANGPOP BANG flash crrackle flash POPBang.**

In a moment, the hand that had been dragging her disappeared, and she stumbled backwards, barely managing to stay upright. She whirled, uselessly. Her arms were tied, and her senses, occupied.

**Crackle FLASHpop BANG crackle hiss HISSSSSS BANG --**

The deafening hum of silence rang in her ears as the helmet was, mercifully, pulled off her head, leaving her gasping and shuddering. She blinked, traumatized and termporarily blinded eyes readjusting to the steady, gentle light of what appeared to be the freighter’s cramped sleeping quarters.

Sarna hunched in on herself, seeking out her attacker, trying to simultaneously prepare herself for a killing blow while desperately blinking haze from her eyes. She saw a pinkish white cloud in the dappled gray of her surroundings, and swiveled her head towards it. His shape slowly came into blurry focus, her eyesight waxing and waning in pulses.

She had so few options and assets, that she decided to try reasoning with him. At least it was more likely to work on a weak-minded Jedi than on any other foe she’d ever faced. She took the strongest tone she could muster.

“I didn’t do -”

“Do you want me to keep it off?” he bit out.

“What?” she asked, eyes flickering to the vaguely helmet-shaped blur tucked under his arm. Her voice hitched. “The - yes, _force_ please, I -”

“Stay in here and stay the _fuck_ silent,” he said, already stepping back into the corridor. His eyes were frigid, but even they couldn’t quite match his tone. “If I hear so much as one breath from you in the next few minutes, you’ll never see the outside of this helmet again, not if you live to be crooked and gray.”

The door slammed shut between them at his press of a button, and ice rippled down Sarna’s spine as she heard the Jedi’s boots clomping back towards an insistent beep in the control room. She sank to her knees, relieved to let rest her shaking legs. 

She knew if he had threatened death, it would likely be a bluff - but the helmet, he just might believably impose on her for the duration of their trip. Her silence and stillness was a low price to pay in preventing that fate.

———-

“Cyrus,” Master Kelko Corr breathed. His voice fluctuated just slightly, grainy with the faster-than-lightspeed transmission. “Thank goodness. I was beginning to wonder if you’d run into some kind of trouble. What’s gotten into you, what’s going on?”

“I apologize, Master,” he said. Cyrus delivered the lines he’d been practicing in his head for days. 

“I knew you’d be occupied offworld this week and I decided to take a… trip,” he said, pausing, hoping to garner sympathy. “I’ve heard stories about a vergence of the force on Lothal - I thought visiting the ancient temple there might bring me some peace.”

Kelko himself paused before answering. That was a good sign - the older Mirialan was usually quick to speak. Cyrus must have gotten through to him in some small way.

“Cyrus, I’d hoped we were past this.”

_Shit, apparently not._

“I miss Kyp, too. But you can’t just run off without warning to visit his homeworld when my back is turned,” Kelko said.

The Jedi apprentice swallowed dryly in way of response.

“Kyp has become one with the force. You need to evaluate your connections, even your friendships, and consider their nature. It’s good to care for others. But to let what is only a temporary separation drive you to distraction… you need to be wary that you aren’t letting your feelings cloud your better judgment. You’re almost a Master in your own right, but you won’t be invited to the council until you can reliably control your emotions.”

“I am sorry Master. I agree with you,” Cyrus answered, his voice low and appropriately humbled. He thought his next words over carefully, to avoid a lie. As it was, he would be in deep enough bantha fodder when he got back to Coruscant.

“I never landed. I made it this far, and I’d just turned around to come back to Coruscant when you rang.”

“Incidentally,” Kelko said, “don’t do that just yet.”

“Master?”

———

Sarna Duine lay slumped against the metal door, eyes closed, focused on making her breaths even again. She brought her knees to her chest, feeling her heart hammer against her ribcage, arms still clamped firmly behind her back in the silver binders.

In the absence of the torturous cacophony from the Jedi’s helmet, the silence around her seemed to lay heavy as cotton on her ears. Bright shapes still danced on the back of her eyelids, but now she could better see her surroundings.

The room was just wider than her full arm span, and long enough to accommodate a simple metal bunk, welded to the floor. Weak lighting cast long shadows on the rumpled gray blanket and tangled white sheets. The wall to her left indented to make room for two shelves - on which, she could see some tawny folded garments, a toothbrush, and what looked to be a tin of hair product. Sparse as it was, this must be where the Jedi slept.

What a disaster she had landed in. There would be no connection to the force as long as he wielded that device. That she could be effectively restrained by something so _rudimentary,_ added insult to injury. And there certainly would be no rescue from Darth Regin - of that, she was absolutely positive. She probably had mere days to kill the Jedi and make her escape, if she wanted to stay his disciple. Another test, in the cycle of endless tests.

She didn’t mind. She knew she was worthy of her role.

Still, the line would be thin this time between acting too impulsively (and getting herself killed) or biding her time too patiently (and missing Regin’s window of acceptable escape).

She lolled her head to one side, resting her ear, tender from the recent pressure of the old-fashioned headset, against the cool metal door - then, with more deliberation, pressing it _intently_ to the door. With enough stillness, she could just barely hear the Jedi respond to a murmuring crackle of transmission.

“vergence of the force on Lothal - I thought visiting the ancient temple there might bring me some peace,” he said.

 _Lothal? Was that… an outright lie? From the Jedi?_

He had intercepted her ship in space, technically near Lothal, but not in any hyperspace lane he would have taken to reach the planet from Coruscant. In the brief moment she’d had to consider her attacker before their battle, she had assumed he was deliberately tracking her on orders from the Jedi Council.

“I never landed. I made it this far, and I’d just turned around to come back to Coruscant when you rang ... Master?”

_How interesting._

It would be so much easier to eliminate her captor without the intervention or protection of the Jedi council, which Sarna was now quite sure this man had not requested.

It’s true, she was on her own. But now the Sith apprentice knew, so was her enemy.

She scootched to the center of the floor, waving her hand at the rumpled cot to straighten the peasant-quality blankets that laid tousled on it ( _shameful, honestly_ ), and crossed her legs in a meditative stance. 

She could follow his rules about being silent while contemplating the means of his death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AND SO BEGINS THEIR RELUCTANT ADVENTURE. -wiggles eyebrows-
> 
> Also, I think I'm going to start switching back and forth between perspectives, outlined by the "----" things. I'm a firm believer that stories are better when told with more perspectives.

**Author's Note:**

> I like to have art of what's going on. My Tumblr feed has sketches of Sarna and Mr. Jedi [Sarna and Mr. Jedi](https://stilettosandscrapyards.tumblr.com/) \- and if you like to draw, I'd love to feature your takes on these characters there as well!


End file.
